Beloved as "The Johnny Carson" of Top 40 radio

"Big" Dan Ingram, the popular WABC-AM DJ who gave area baby boomers their fill of Top 40 hits during the 1960s and 1970s, has died at 83 at his home in South Florida, according to his son Chris Ingram, of Cherry Hill.

Ingram, who frequently yelled, “Hey, Kemosabe,” across the airwaves, joined WABC in 1961 and, for the next two decades, provided listeners with the latest hits from super-bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and one-hit wonders like the Archies and Blue Swede.

Ingram occasionally tampered with the songs, too, for comical effect, including the Blue Swede cover of “Hooked on a Feeling,” which he manipulated so that the catchy — and, to some, annoying — “ooka-chucka-ooga-ooga” refrain, played on a loop over and over again.

He was also remembered for the jaunty Billy May song "Tri-Fi Drums," which he used as the closing theme on his broadcasts.

Ingram continued working after WABC made the switch to talk radio, spinning at WKTU-FM in 1984 and eventually moving to oldies station WCBS-FM, where he remained until his retirement in 2003.

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He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007. He was also the winner of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for an anti-smoking campaign he worked on.

As his CBS obituary notes, Ingram was “a radio pioneer and considered by some to be the best Top 40 DJ of all time,” according to the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Official "Kemosabe Kard" sent to fans in the 1960s.(Photo: Courtesy of Chris Ingram)

He was also among the funniest DJs of that era, when on-air personalities spent almost as much time joking with listeners as they did playing music.

Comic actor and radio personality Joe Piscopo called Ingram “the Johnny Carson of radio,” and Broadway Bill Lee, another veteran DJ who worked at WKTU, tweeted: “A DJ’s DJ. Thanks for showing us just how well it can be done.”

His colleagues at WCBS wrote on the station’s website that Ingram started his broadcasting career at small New York radio stations at Hofstra College and in New Rochelle and Patchogue. "After bouncing around a bunch of radio stations, on July 3rd, 1961, he started at WABC and you couldn’t go anywhere in the area without hearing Dan and WABC! Many consider this time the glory days of radio and Dan was the poster boy!" his colleagues wrote. "Dan Ingram will be missed by us all, thank you for the gift of great radio for so many years!”